Alberton FNL Round 8 review

The Kangaroos controlled much of the opening term and they had the Demons Wright and Corry working very hard in their defensive end of the ground. A shower of rain made the conditions slippery through the early part of the match but the weather cleared for the large crowd to enjoy. At the end of term one, the Kangaroos were again inaccurate with 5.5 to the Demons one behind.

The second quarter was similar to the first and Fish Creek continued on its way, building a bigger lead. MDU managed a couple of goals to get themselves on the board but it was really a one sided first half with Cooper, Smith and Shaw all very prominent in getting their side to a handy 55 point lead.

After half time it was quite a different match with MDU playing with a lot more vigor and Fish Creek taking its foot off the accelerator. Four goals apiece through the third quarter in what was now a much more competitive game had the crowd now very vocal with plenty of banter going around. Both Seccull and Cameron were contributing well in their first game of the season and for MDU youngster Ben Martin in his first senior game was competing well and didn’t look out of place. At the final change it was Fish Creek up by 58 points.

The last quarter underway and the MDU boys were battling very hard regardless of the scoreboard and for the 10 minutes of the quarter, they were having the better of the contest, first to the ball and hitting targets downfield saw them close the gap slightly with a couple of goals. The Kangaroos however are on top of the ladder for a reason and they sparked back into action to finish the game with the final three goals to push the margin out beyond 10 goals to 67 points at the final siren.

This time it was a cheeky young kelpie dog that had the crowds in fits of laughter when it invaded the turf for five minutes and avoided all attempts to coax it off until Stony full back Andrew Logan tackled the mutt and held it high above his head while he took it from the ground. Earlier, one of the Stony trainers tried to use the match ball, with the permission of the umpires, to get the dog to come, but it wouldn’t. Others chased but to no avail. But as entertaining as the incident was, club officials believe it might have cost Stony Creek, and their two-pronged attack of Kael Bergles and Jacob Byrnes, the chance to go on a goal kicking spree as they took full charge of the match in the opening minutes of the last quarter. Up until that point, Stony Creek had dominated Toora, who seemed more intent on double-teaming and frustrating Stony‘s star forward Bergles than playing their usual game.

Stony held a 36-point lead at the last change but with three quick goals looked like running away to a big margin before the dog incident. Someone said the dog actually belonged to one of the Stony Creek players but he didn’t own up, and possibly aware the dog was hard to corner, didn’t put his hand up for the task.

But Stony looked the real deal in the match, having added strongly to their line-up after the DWWWW’s demise. All of those boys played well on the day. The arrival of Bergles in particular has given Jacob Byrnes a new lease of life and the pair are working really well together up forward and will be hard to curtail come finals time. The club also has a wealth of midfield talent to run through the centre as required. Jack Soroczynski, Cam McKenzie, Kael Bergles, Michael Milivojevic, Matija Sigeti and Andrew Logan (not just for catching the dog) were named best but. there were plenty of contributors.

Grant, Willder, Griffin, Manton, O’Sullivan and Dyson all continued on well from the previous week for Toora but Stony was just too good on the day.